What is this Storytelling, anyway ?

How many times has this happened to you?  

You walk out of a data heavy meeting with super complex numbers, fancy charts and umpteen insights thrown in the air, trying to summarize what you heard minutes ago. And all you can draw is a big blank. Nothing comes to mind. Zilch!

If you are a consumer of Analytics, I bet this happens a lot. 

And if you are a producer of Analytics then your primary objective is to NOT make presentations like this.

Which begs the question - How can you get your perfectly researched facts and figures cut through the noise and register with your audience ? How do you do present the results of your analysis with an impact ?

The answer is simple. With a Story.

"Storytelling is the most powerful way to put ideas into the world today” —Robert McKee

For those with a STEM background, this might seem a pretty fuzzy concept. Something in the arcane realm of Art - there are no equations for storytelling, right ? .

I have seen intelligent and articulate folks create flawless reports which are a bunch of facts stashed together. And when you tell them things like “You have to paint a compelling picture with the data”, probably the only think they can think of is regret they didn’t take that painting class in college!

Storytelling is hard. How do you weave facts and insights to create a story that sticks with your audience ? How do you make your data memorable ?  

These are deep questions , and here are 3 rules that can help.

Every good Story has a logical sequence:

Ever seen any Pixar blockbuster ? They almost always go like this:

"Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___."

This is a classic pattern of Situation, Complication, Question and Answer - the magic formula for every awesome book, movie or business analysis that has been made.

Following a well defined path when you write an analysis will help your audience clearly map out your message in their minds. You have to make choices on what you want to convey – and hold your audience’s hand along the the path you want them to take.

Every good Story has a logical sequence. No exceptions.

The best Stories are the ones you already know:

Ensuring that your audience can relate with the content in your presentation is an absolute must. Ambiguity and whodunnits while delivering insights and findings is'nt a great idea, really!

“The secret of the Great Stories is that they have no secrets” — Arundhati Roy

So if your objective is to deliver your message with minimum transmission loss, here is what you should do:

• Set the context right at the beginning itself. You don’t want some folks to be clueless about what’s going on, do you?
• Focus on what your audience cares about. The hero of this story is the audience and not you 
• Tell them things they will agree with before you talk about things they might disagree with
• Avoid trick endings and eliminate guesswork. If you have multiple decisions that stakeholders can make at the end of a meeting - always have a recommendation in place 

 Storytelling is an emotional interaction: 

Storytelling is “Data with a Soul”, and the soul part of it is what makes data stories memorable. 

• '90% of customer support calls come in the first year of your product's life’ 
• '67% of the customers who visited your website through daily deals never made a second purchase!’

Do any of these stats stir up any emotion in your business users ? Does this make them feel concerned … optimistic .. disappointed ? Adding numbers and insights that harness the right emotions into your presentations can make it a super powerful medium of communication.

One emotion test you can apply while writing an analysis is - What will your reader remember 1 day after going through this report ? How will they feel? If an insight doesn't forge any emotional connection then its probably not worth putting it out there - push it to the appendix.

Summing it up...

As the amount of data getting collected , shared and stored explodes, storytelling has become the most powerful weaponry in the arsenal of data junkies and number crunchers. And probably the only one which cannot be automated. 

Good stories can get ingrained in your audience's minds and create whole new belief systems in their heads. And of course ...

“Great stories happen to those who can tell them” ― Ira Glass

Not a bad idea to be one of them!